


Kiss a What?

by Ray_Writes



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 04:06:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13356150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: The Doctor and Donna accidentally land on day where being ginger has a particular significance.





	Kiss a What?

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't resist once I realized what day it was. This was admittedly very rushed and is unbeta'd, so apologies for any mistakes or dip in quality. Just a bit of fluff, so hopefully you enjoy!

The Doctor helped Donna unload their shopping cart onto the belt and hoped not for the first time that no one he knew was presently in this store. It wasn’t that he had a _problem_ being here; Donna had disabused him of the notion that he was too good for telly and Tescos, after all. But he had a reputation of sorts to keep up, and if they ran into Sarah Jane or someone on the way out the door, he’d never live it down.

It’d also be bad for timey-wimey reasons. He’d realized after they’d landed that the TARDIS had been off a few years from Donna’s personal timeline.

“So it’s 2011. Why can’t we pop in to see my folks?” She’d asked. “At least Gramps. We can tell him not to give away any future stuff.”

“No, that’s way too complicated. You don’t want to start meeting your family in the wrong order, that’d be dreadful. We’ll go to the shops and I’ll give it another try while you put the things away.”

She’d agreed and they’d had a relatively calm visit to the relative future so far. As the Doctor looked up from placing the biscuits on the belt, however, he gave a jolt of panic.

“Donna, you can’t buy that!” He tried to grab the magazine she’d picked up and begun to peruse, but she pulled it out of reach.

“Why not? Don’t you start pretending you don’t read them.”

“Yes, well, that one’s from your future. There’s going to be all sorts of information in there you’re not meant to know yet.”

Her eyebrows both went up. “That’d be good for a bet.” She looked down at the cover with renewed interest. “Wonder if I could fool Nerys with one. She always likes making predictions on who’s gonna break up.”

He finally snagged the copy of _Heat_ while she was distracted plotting her next move against her rival. “Donna, no.”

“Oh, come on! I just want to see if Posh and Becks are still together.”

“No,” he repeated, trying very hard to suppress a smile. “Haven’t you seen _Back to the Future_? No bets based off future knowledge.”

“I am so bringing this up the next time you buy someone a bloody lottery ticket,” she warned, but allowed him to place the magazine back.

“Oh, I _bet_ you will.”

A woman probably around Sylvia’s age had come up behind them in the checkout, so they quieted down, though the Doctor snickered when Donna nudged him in the ribs for that pun.

Donna finished scanning everything, then moved down to begin bagging it all up. “You’ve got money, right? My card’s not gonna work.”

“Yes, as you’ve requested, I am carrying money.” He began to rifle through his jacket pockets for it.

“Lucky thing I said something, too. I mean, after Christmas Eve, you didn’t think to start having a few pounds on you?”

“No, so lucky thing you did say something,” he dutifully echoed, then darted a quick look in the woman’s direction again. “Should just take a minute.”

“That’s alright.” She was watching them with a warm smile. “See you’ve got your ginger.”

The Doctor blinked. “Er, sorry?”

Donna looked up from where she was still bagging their things. “His what?”

The woman stepped back in surprise at Donna’s forcefulness, a common response. “Oh, I only meant — well, today’s the day, isn’t it?”

“Well, that depends, doesn’t it?” The Doctor said, giving a nervous laugh. “What, er, what day is it, exactly?”

“The twelfth, of course! The twelfth of January?” She prompted when neither of them had a noticeable reaction.

“Right.” The Doctor nodded, all the while racking his brains for something, _anything_. “Twelfth of January.”

“Is that somebody’s birthday?” Donna muttered, having sidled up to him again.

“No, I don’t think so. Well, someone must have one, but not someone important enough to make it some kind of national holiday.”

He was missing something, that was obvious. Something to do with the date. He ought to know this; dates were sort of his thing. His eyes strayed back to the magazine racks displaying all kinds of articles either about the previous holiday season or the new year — which was 2011.

2011, the twelfth of January. National holiday. Donna. No, _ginger_.

“Oh!”

Donna jumped beside him.

“It’s National Kiss a Ginger Day!” How could he have forgotten that?

“Kiss a _what_?” Donna demanded.

“Though I never understood the ‘National’ bit. They do it all over the world, don’t they? At least where there’s gingers.”

“I heard it on the radio this morning,” the woman told them. “They said it’s the third annual one. Must be a nice excuse for you and your wife to get cozy,” she added to him with a giggle.

The Doctor blanched. Now was about the worst timing for this typical misunderstanding. “Oh, er, we’re not—”

“Oh, my God,” said Donna, eyes cast up to the ceiling and face very red. Almost as red as her hair, actually. Without another word, she turned and walked out of the store.

“Donna!” The Doctor looked between her retreating back and the transaction they’d yet to complete. Then he turned to the woman still waiting to use their machine. “Sorry, could you just put some of these in?” He passed her more than enough pound notes to cover it, then gathered up the bags. “Keep the change. _Donna_!”

He didn’t have to look far for her.

“What the _hell_ kind of holiday is that? Just walk up and snog a ginger? What happens in 2009, do people go mad?”

“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong,” he said, hoping to reassure her. “They go mad in 2008.”

“ _What_?”

The Doctor made a face. “Some person on the internet starts this thing about Kick a Ginger Day because of a cartoon and it gets spread around on social media.”

“Hold on, when’s that? Am I gonna go home next week and have people lined up at my door?”

“Probably not. Mostly ginger schoolchildren bear the brunt of it. I’ll make sure we’re offworld on November 20th, anyway.”

“ _Or_ why don’t we just stop it from ever happening in the first place?” Was Donna’s suggestion.

“Can’t,” he said with a shake of the head. The Doctor began to walk in the direction of where they’d parked the TARDIS; the bags were getting rather heavy. “Fixed point in time.”

She’d already fallen right into step with him. “How is Kick a Ginger Day a fixed point in time?”

“Because it creates Kiss a Ginger Day!” He exclaimed, throwing his arms out wide before remembering the bags swinging wildly in his grip. The Doctor hastily got them under control. “Much better holiday.”

“Says who? I don’t need strangers coming up to me—”

“No, no, no, no, no, it’s not strangers, Donna. The idea of Kiss a Ginger Day is to spread positivity and let the gingers in your life know just how much you appreciate them. And why wouldn’t we?" He added, grinning broadly. "Can’t believe it’s today, isn’t that brilliant? I’ve never celebrated it before.”

Donna stopped, hands on her hips. He turned back to her and nearly caught someone passing by in the stomach with the milk.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Give me those,” said Donna, grabbing for the bags. “You’re gonna take someone’s head off. And you better think again about celebrating, Sunshine.”

“What, why?”

“Because it’s daft, and I’m not doing it. So you can either find yourself a different ginger or forget the whole thing. Like I needed more reasons to hate my hair color,” she added under her breath.

He reached for her shoulders before she could begin walking again. “Donna, it’s not about embarrassing you or making you ashamed of your hair. It’s _celebrating_ it.” He couldn’t help letting his eyes roam over the ginger waves that spilled down past her shoulders. It was somehow physically painful to hear how little she thought of herself, when all he could see was absolute radiance.

“And if there is any ginger on the planet who needs reminded there’s nothing wrong with being ginger, it’s you. You deserve to be recognized and celebrated.”

Donna had turned a bit pink again, and he should’ve expected it when she tossed out a defensive, “What, and that’s your job now?”

The Doctor did something that surprised them both, and answered honestly, “I don’t see why it couldn’t be.”

Donna gaped at him.

What? He was her best friend and therefore had an appreciation for and vested interest in her brilliance and gingerness. If kissing Donna Noble were a possible occupation to have, based on the one sample he’d gotten in the 1920s, he’d apply. So he stood his ground.

Donna’s mouth eventually snapped shut, and her eyes narrowed. “Fine then! You think you’re so good? This better be the kiss of my ginger life, Time Boy!”

On any other occasion, his fear of the consequences for such an action as kissing Donna Noble, his supposed to be ‘just mate’, might have been enough to make him rethink the whole thing.

But she really shouldn’t have put it as a challenge.

The Doctor cupped her cheek and the back of her head, finally allowing his fingers to thread through soft, vibrant red tresses that had been tempting him for far too long now. Even more tempting were the plump lips Donna possessed, an experience he’d been hoping to revisit and even better than before.

Donna wasn’t about shy pecks, and the idea that this was likely his last ever chance had the Doctor moving his mouth with a desperate hunger against hers. Every bit of adoration and care that had grown in him for this woman went into it. He tilted her head back for a better angle, and that was when Donna’s arms came around him. The Doctor’s hearts were in a competition to see which would beat right out of his chest first, and both his hands were in her hair, and he thought if a time loop occurred that stuck them in the twelfth of January for all eternity that would be perfectly alright by him—

Two successive hits to his sides had him breaking away to get his breath back. In all of that, they’d both forgotten the bags still in Donna’s hands and which had knocked into him.

Donna switched them all to one hand and rested her now free one just above his hip. “You okay?”

He sucked in the breath he’d just taken and tried not to jump under her touch. “Yeah, just the milk.”

“Oh, God, sorry!”

Donna seemed to remember herself and stepped back, panting. He hadn’t removed his hands, and so he felt her hair trail past his fingers. The Doctor licked his lips and realized now was about when he needed to say something for himself.

“So...was it the best kiss of your ginger life?”

Clearly, his brain wasn’t quite working right after that kiss.

Donna made an odd sort of choking noise. Oh, he was in for it now. Really, was he _trying_ to make her want to leave?

She eventually composed herself but chose not to answer, instead asking, “They do a lot of these in the future? National Kissing Days?”

It took him a moment to respond, not entirely sure where things were going. “I suppose. Kiss a Dancer Day, Footballer Day, that sort of thing. They’re not as popular, though.”

“What about Kiss an Alien Day?” Donna moved back the step she’d taken away from him. “Or Kiss Someone in Pinstripes Day? Those popular?”

“Um,” said the Doctor with a slight squeak. “Possibly? They- they’re not today, though.”

“Right,” Donna acknowledged with a nod. “Shame we can’t just go to a totally different date — oh wait.” She half turned and tilted her head in the direction of the TARDIS. With that, she set off walking again.

He stood there a long moment. Then a smile slowly stretched across his face. “Oh, she is brilliant,” he said to himself, then ran to catch up.

By the time they got around to unloading the groceries, they had some severely bruised fruit, countless bits and crumbs of biscuits, and an oddly dented and misshapen carton of milk. The Doctor was the one to put it all away, since Donna claimed she now had a bunch of tangles in her hair that needed taken care of.

He made a note to start carrying a brush for her in his pockets. It was bound to come in handy.


End file.
